Friday, July 27, 2012

I'm just lovin' our new pond. It measures around 9m x 2.5m and at its deepest its around 1.8m.

We thought hard about the planting and the two sides of common reed at the 'formal' end of the pond are growing well and look great, and replicate the dykes around. The reeds themselves are great for perching damselflies.

We have plenty of ponds plants coming through now, bought, begged and stolen, and the pond is looking way better than I thought it would do at this point - its only three months old!

The open banks at the shallow end have been sown with a meadow mixture and will eventually green over.

The reeds on our pond are already way ahead of the reeds in the nearby dykes!

We couldn't walk on the sown areas until very recently so planting was restricted to where we could reach from the path and bridge! The area by the bridge is looking great with loads of different plants in here now and a real refuge for much of the pondlife present.

This maturing male Ruddy Darter is the 13th species recorded this year.

Emerald Damselfly is one of three new species of dragonfly seen in the garden in recent weeks.

This year we've recorded the following species so far :

Hairy Dragonfly - male regularly in May and early JuneBrown Hawker - dailySouthern Hawker - seen on several dates so farEmperor - most daysBroad-bodied Chaser - daily, pr present for the first time, only one previous record for gardenBlack-tailed Skimmer - new for gardenFour-spotted Chaser - dailyRuddy Darter - seen todayEmerald Damselfly - new, inc. ovispositingBlue-tailed Damselfly - daily inc. ovipositingAzure Damselfly - dailyCommon Blue Damselfly - daily inc. ovipositingLarge Red-eyed Damsefly - new, seen on three dates so far

Friday, July 06, 2012

Its hard to believe looking out over the drive which is largely water thanks to nearly 24 hours of rain, but this was yesterday lunchtime and Jax (thats his curly locks in the bottom right corner) and I sat having lunch enjoying the sun in our new garden, and in particular how fab the garden pond is doing as we watched four drag species buzzing about.

The common reed planted down two sides of the section near the house is doing great and is already being used by Azure and Blue-tailed Damselflies.

Water plantain (flowering in foreground) and other pond plants in the shallow section doing great!

Common reed, water plantain and broad-leaved pondweed in the mid-water section of the pond.

The pond as from the first floor. Reeds clear to see and the back meadow area beginning to green and the near clover lawn beginning to come through.

Amazingly, this Broad-bodied Chaser is only the second I've seen in the garden in ten years! He's taken up territory in the garden and was one of four drag species present around the pond today - BBC, Emperor, Azure and Blue-tailed Damsels. Hairy Dragon also present until this last week.